Island Life Newsletter: Foraging - the new fine dining on Cempedak
- Andrew Dixon
- 3 days ago
- 5 min read
This is an archived edition of Island Life. Island Life is the bi-monthly newsletter and whimsical musings from the team at Nikoi and Cempedak Islands. You can subscribe to it here.
Messages For Yogi
We had a tremendous number of messages following our last newsletter where I mentioned that Yogi decided to retire. Many of you shared pictures and stories right back from the early days when we opened in 2007. Here are a few of my favourites:
“Happy retirement Yogi, thanks for everything in our about 10 visits to the island and for making our wedding so special, including jumping off the pier to chase us to pay the bill... the guests really thought we hadn't paid and he was after us.”
“It all happened in October 2009... Yogi made our daughters holiday more than perfect. She's now almost 27 years old, went to Cempedak with her partner last year and still keeps the bracelet made out of shells by Yogi in a small box.”
“I met Yogi along with Yudi and Jimmy back in 2010, the year of my first visit to Nikoi Island. One night we had a jam session and I recorded a song on my laptop. Jimmy took the lead on vocals with Yogi playing guitar and singing backup. I called the song “Nikoi” and you can listen to it here”
“Thank you, Yogi, for inspiring countless children over nearly two decades at Nikoi to love nature, embrace their wild side, and not be afraid of high-fiving spiders (and putting them in their mouth). The world definitely needs more Yogis, especially now, and I am hopeful your legacy stays strong and inspires many others for years to come.”
Sea Turtle Nests
Shortly after the new year rang, I got a lovely message from Amandine, our Marine Biologist on Nikoi. She recapped the success of last year’s efforts to protect the sea turtles that nest on the beaches of Nikoi and Cempedak. We recorded the most productive season to date: nearly 4,000 hatchlings safely reached the sea from a total of 77 nests. The majority of these nests are from Hawksbill turtles which are critically endangered.
As we look towards the upcoming 2026 season we are hopeful - one nest has already hatched on Nikoi and another has been laid on Cempedak. Normally the turtle hatching season is between May and October, so we were quite surprised by this.
Photo credit: Richard Cleeve
The Last Dugong Hunter by Pamela Ng
Last August, Pamela Ng joined us on Cempedak as the first writer-in-residence for Tulisan Nusantara. I’ve written about her stay before, not least because her timing was spot on, coinciding with the run of cultural events leading up to Indonesian Independence Day. A few weeks ago, Pam finished the main piece from her residency, which we’ve now published on our website. The longer-term idea with Tulisan Nusantara is to build a body of work from these residencies, which we will collate into a coffee table book and add to the island bookshelf, giving our cookbook a bit of company.
Pam’s piece, The Last Dugong Hunter, centres around her time on a neighbouring island - Air Gelubi - where she met Pak Munsa and his community, whose lives are still shaped by the sea. It’s a powerful account of the pressures local maritime culture is facing and calls out the realities of industrialisation edging closer to the small island and coastal communities around us. It’s not always comfortable reading, but it's important. The writing is accompanied by photographs from Joshua Irwandi, a very talented Indonesian photographer whose work has appeared on the cover of Time, and in National Geographic, The New York Times and The Washington Post. His images add another layer entirely, and I’m very grateful he visited us last year to capture this story, even before Pam’s words existed to sit alongside them.
Photos by Joshua Irwandi, words by Pamela Ng. Read the full piece here.
The Dodo Star
For those familiar with Cempedak Island you will know the iconic Dodo Bar, home to our stuffed Dodo. The spiral black roof of the bar was inspired by the shape of the cone seashells found on our beaches. In December, Leanna (head of our marketing team of one) decided the roof also looked a bit like a Christmas Tree and swiftly photoshopped a star on top for a festive social media post.
Unprompted by either of us, the island team took this as a challenge and crafted a real star to install on the roof for the Christmas period. Given the apex sits around 12-13 metres up with no ladder access, this was no small feat. I was relieved to hear about it only after the fact and was reassured to see our rock-climbing safety equipment put to very good use.
Foraging for Dinner
We’ve spent the first few weeks of 2026 planning the year ahead, and it’s shaping up nicely. An array of artists, writers, kids camps and special weekends have been listed on the events pages of Nikoi’s and Cempedak’s websites.
One thing we haven’t announced publicly yet, but I’m very excited for, involves Michael Lewis, Head Chef of Sala Dining. Towards the end of July, he’ll be coming to Cempedak to bring our guests on a foraging experience where they will gather the ingredients for their dinner. Given we already grow quite a bit of our ingredients on the island, I’m intrigued to see what else he might discover. Details will follow on the website and socials soon. If you’d like early notice before it goes ‘public’, email us and we’ll add you to the mailing list for it.
Book Recommendation: Revolusi
I shared in my last newsletter about the fantastic depth and interest in Indonesian literature that I encountered at the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival. Whilst not Indonesian, I was very impressed by a talk given by a Belgian writer, David Van Reybrouck who has written a tomb on Indonesia’s journey to independence - the first colonised country to declare independence following WWII. Revolusi is written in Dutch and has recently been translated into English. I have been ploughing through this over my summer holidays in Australia and yes its weight has helped me nod off to sleep once or twice.
Despite a few bruises to my forehead, I have been thoroughly enjoying it and would highly recommend it. I think it is particularly interesting that it has been written from the lens of a Belgian writer and in doing so removes the biases that might have been presented if it was written from a Dutch or Indonesian perspective. Van Reybrouck spent 4 years researching the story and interviewed an impressive number of witnesses to the events, some who are over 100 years old.
Help Shape our 2026 Events Calendar
If you’ve been around for a while, you’ll know we often host events in Singapore for our Island Club members and local network. What started as an excuse to make use of the bar in our office has grown into a fairly full calendar, from woodwork workshops and walking tours to kitchen takeovers and evenings at the Mandala Club. The feedback has been great, so this year we’re planning to do more. We’d love to know what you would actually like to come to. If you have five minutes to spare, please fill out this form:
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